The End of the Comcast Monopoly Might Begin Today: Boo, Comcast! Hurray, Free Infrastructure from AT&T!

[Well, the can got kicked down the road today at the BoS of course. Oh well. BTW, can your neighbors band together to prevent you from getting your mail? Not that I know of. So why should your neighbors band together to prevent you from getting your Internet at faster than dial-up speed? I don’t know. Once again it’s Rich White Homeowners 1, You 0.]

And remember, there’s graffiti in town that’s on other, non-AT&T utility structures.

Can you imagine?

All right, let me be your Sightsee M.C. – let’s take a tour of the Western Addition, the NIMBYs’ Fortress of Reaction.

Check it, is this a graffitoed AT&T box? No it’s not:

Click to expand

So what, should we take it out to satisfy the millionaire homeowners across the street? You know, just do without whatever utility this utility box provides? Is that what you want, NIMBYs?

I think that one above is about electricity.

I know this one here is about electricity or gas, one or the other or both – see the new SmartMeter stuff? Is this array considered blight? So then we should live in the dark with candles, maybe?

Oh here we go, look at all this telephone pole “blight.” Should we get rid of land lines now?

Now, I don’t think you people need to watch any more TV than you already do. But U-Verse is a utility, right? Just like phone service and electrical and gas and whatnot, right?

So what gives wealthy, influential, white people* the right to put the kibosh on somebody’s Internet / Phone / Cable TV triple play for $99** a month?

That’s what I don’t know…

*What’s that NIMBY? You’re not wealthy? Oh yes you are! What’s that NIMBY? You’re not influential? Oh yes you are! You’ve got Supervisor Scott Wiener shaking in his boots, as ascared of you as he is of area dog owners. What’s that NIMBY? You’re not white? Oh, forget it, you already know you’re white, right NIMBY?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 at 10:08 pm and is filed under paranormal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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You are being very naive. Do you really think ATT is going to deliver anything close to a 21st century experience?

Let me give you some examples.

Do you have an iPhone? Have you seen how pathetic ATT’s service is in San Francisco? People have been complaining about this since the day the iPhone was launched, and the situation keeps getting worse. ATT’s response has been, “what are you going to do about it? you are locked in!”

The Internet is too important a piece of infrastructure to outsource it to a company like ATT.. ATT is the same company that setup a special room in its data center so that the NSA could conveniently wiretap all phone calls!
Do you really want to give them all control over your Internet activity too??

What we need in this city is a city-owned fiber network. Cities like Chattanooga TN are delivering up to 1Gbps (yes, you read that right: GIGA bits per second) to the home via a municipal fiber network. Don’t you think San Francisco deserves something as good??

Yes, Uverse is better than dial up, Uverse is better than the Comcast monopoly.
No, I have an Android, market leader, cheaper, better.
Yes, AT&T is still overwhelmed by iPhone popularity. Don’t buy an iPhone, that’s my advice.
Not really outsourcing, providing an option.
Don’t care about the NSA and room whatever ‘n stuff.
All in due time.
You realize that it’s dial up only still in some parts of SF? You realize we’d be the last to get Uverse in CA?

While you seem to be arguing my point, you are actually making my point.
ATT is the phone service provider. They were supposed to provide DSL service, what, 10 years ago? And if parts of SF are still on dialup, then it means ATT has done a terrible job. Which reinforces my point: ATT has a terrible record of service. We (the people of SF) will give them yet another break, and going by their track record, they will provide shoddy service and leave large parts of the City in the dark. And we’ll be left with 760 hideous boxes.

The solution is for the City to step in and provide fiber to the homes. And then you will be able to turn around and buy Internet service from any of the providers. The Internet is too important a piece of infrastructure to leave in the hands of company like ATT; especially one with such a bad record of service.

It doesn’t matter to me whether ATT is, in general, a “good” company or not.

The point I’m trying to make (albeit unsuccessfully) is that ATT will *NOT* deliver the very thing that you seem to be lusting after. My examples, which you seem to not get, show how ATT has promised similar things in the past but not delivered; and hence, there’s no reason to expect that they’ll deliver in this case either.

If you want FTTH, and in particular, a city-owned FTTH, then you have to pipe up and demand it. If enough people speak up, the politicians will listen.